After years of grinding away, the suddenly-everywhere actor is enjoying fame and near-universal adulation thanks to his dual streaming blockbusters THE LAST OF US and THE MANDALORIAN. Over a weekend in New York, he talks about all of it—and everything that’s coming next. “It’s Pedro Pascal’s World Now” by Dave Holmes is on Esquire.com now and in the new April/May issue, available everywhere by April 18.
On what it means to be middle aged: “I had a moment of thinking, You’re in your forties and you don’t own a home? Grow up. But I’m relinquishing expectations around what it is to be middle-aged and what it means to be fully grown up. Why am I trying to force a square shape into a triangle? I just don’t want to make any decisions.”
On hosting SNL for the first time: “I’m usually not all that interested in challenging myself…I could not have had a better time.”
More on SNL, which fell on the anniversary of his mother’s passing: “I was so scared that week that I was talking to her…there would be that terror waiting for me—that practical fear of bombing in front of the world. And then I talked to her, and it was really comforting. I had sort of the realization that it would be nice to talk to her more…I love you. I miss you. Thank you. I’m scared. I would love it if you would help me believe in myself, because I know you do.”
On the song “Come See About Me” by the Supremes: “Come see about me, leave me alone, come see about me, leave me alone. That’s my catchphrase.”
On his little sister, Lux: “I wouldn’t want to speak on her behalf, but she is and has always been one of the most powerful people and personalities I’ve ever known. My protective side is lethal, but I need her more than she needs me.”
On why safeguarding the emotions of others—including his siblings, his father, and their extended family—is always front of mind for him: “It could have to do with the fact that I don’t have my own family, and that my siblings and my chosen family are where I invest all of my emotional energy. But I’m also a little protective of people’s experience in general.”
On worrying about whether he’d ever make it as an actor: “I died so many deaths. My vision of it was that if I didn’t have some major exposure by the time I was twenty-nine years old, it was over, so I was constantly readjusting what it meant to commit my life to this profession, and giving up the idea of it looking like I thought it would when I was a kid. There were so many good reasons to let that delusion go.”
On the fate of his character in the second season of The Last of Us: “It wouldn’t make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path. So, yeah, that’s my honest answer.”
On working with the Grogu puppet in The Mandalorian: “Its eyebrows and eyes and lips and jaw muscles and ears and everything move in the most realistic way; it feels like a very real scene partner.”
On what’s next: “What’s next? I have no f*cking idea. I just hope that I have the maturity to not chase something that would mean more from the outside.”
BELLA RAMSEY, who plays Ellie on The Last of Us, on Pascal’s on-set singing: “He would break out in song a lot on set. ‘Xanadu’ in particular. I don’t think it’s on the official soundtrack, but Pedro singing ‘Xanadu’ is the theme song of The Last of Us.”
[Photo Credit: Norman Jean Roy/Esquire Magazine – Video Credit: Esquire/YouTube]
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